Ey, it's not that bad. I've been using it for over a decade, never made an Apple account (so no appstore apps) and I never use any of the built-in apps (except for super basic stuff like the calculator or preview).
I feel you. A few weeks ago I finished a 450GB torrent that had like 5 seeders all super slow and wouldn't even connect most of the time. It took over 7 month in total.
All of that can be achieved with an external HDD at a better convenience. I wouldn't want my games to ship even on a usb flash drive, I already have enough of those.
Edit: if the game is only available through digital distribution then an internet connection is a requirement to play the game because you have to be able to obtain the game to play it.
If the internet connection isn't required after downloading, I don't see the issue. Nobody wants go back to CDs (or what ever games come on these days).
Well, that's cheating! In that case I have like 120TB.